


Doppelganger

by Dance_Elle_Dance



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Episode: s06e08 Let's Kill Hitler, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4902196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dance_Elle_Dance/pseuds/Dance_Elle_Dance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And there she is - she looks just like River now, except…she's not. Not yet. (Originally posted on 9/1/11.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doppelganger

**Author's Note:**

> Re-post of another ElevenRiver. Please enjoy!

Regeneration is certainly something when _watched_ for once. Sure, it feels strange when it happens to the Doctor himself, but witnessing it as observer is something completely different. The girl he's been introduced to as Mels. The one that shot the TARDIS. She's regenerating. She's revealed herself to be Melody Pond. The woman that would become River Song.

He can only watch in stunned disbelief along with Amy and Rory as the golden light shoots from her and the change occurs.

Now _there's_ the woman he's known for so long. There she is - she looks just like River now, except…she's not. Not yet. And that part kills him a bit.

And she's so… _giddy_.

Happy with her regeneration, happy with her new body, happy with her hair. Prancing about like a teenager. It would be cute if he wasn't aware of the fact that she's been trained to kill him.

His eyes are trained on her every move, partly because he knows what she plans to do with every opportunity and partly because it's just so fascinating.

Then there's a little game.

Every attempt she tries, he matches it with equal intellect. So much so that she's holding a banana at him as if it were a gun by the end of the whole thing.

The Doctor thinks he's won, of course. He doesn't think of anything but the fact that he's maybe staved off the current threat on his life for just a bit longer.

He's actually pretty distracted by her as she prances about in her new body. He rather likes this body. It just suits her more than the other one, he thinks. Maybe that was because he's so used to _River_ and not _Mels_.

She even says "sweetie" a few times. It sounds wrong on her lips, though. It's not filled with playful and confident and kind flirting. There's just something _wrong_ about it when she says it. Her malice shows through. Her training. The Doctor comforts himself by thinking that she will become the woman he knew before this. He has to have this, or he doesn't know what he'd think.

He purses his lips when she gets right in his face.

She's so close and she even smells like the River he knew. It's disorienting. She's saying something and her breath fans across his face and it's so familiar that he doesn't even protest when she lightly presses her lips against his, just for the most fleeting of moments and then parts. And even that feels just the slightest wrong. But since it's almost like it's the actual _River_ doing that, his two hearts dart about just slightly enough that he notices.

She turns and goes to stand in the window, smirking and saying something about how she loves the feel in the air.

She turns to him, and just before she jumps out the window and into the street, he collapses. Her corresponding smirk is almost ludicrous with satisfaction.

Oh, and the pain hits.

And she's gone.

She's gone, and the Doctor isn't sure what hurts worse - the poison or the fact that his River isn't here ( _for the moment,_ he reminds himself).

All he can do is wait for the moment when she comes back - really, _truly_ back - and hope he doesn't die before then.

Because, really, that wouldn't make sense at all.


End file.
